Wessler: Lack of leadership, talent derailed Braves

Friday

Mar 7, 2014 at 9:45 PM

Kirk WesslerOF THE JOURNAL STAR

ST. LOUIS -- In case anyone is wondering, Bradley basketball coach Geno Ford knows exactly how bad this season was.

In a hallway outside the Braves locker room late Thursday night, about an hour after yet another pitiful performance ended their season with a loss to last-place Loyola in the Missouri Valley tournament, Ford used a vulgarity to describe the game and the season.

Friday afternoon, though still in a mood where enduring 40 minutes of physical torture was preferable to watching his team play four, Ford at least used language fit for a family newspaper.

“We lost to some bad basketball teams in the nonconference season. We can’t do that,” he said.

Ford wasn’t implying the conference season was acceptable. Loyola was a bad team that the Braves handled twice in the regular season before getting out-everythinged by the Ramblers here. The Braves gave away at least two or three more MVC games they could have won. And that happened, Ford knows, because Bradley was bad, too.

Ford also knows this: He was hired to fix a program that had spent most of the previous decade re-defining success as mediocrity, and three years later he’s failing.

This has to be a stunning reality check for a man who delivered winning programs before he arrived at Bradley. Coaches by nature are confident people, and while failure is an inescapable component of sports, colossal failure is not something coaches contemplate. And the truth is, if a 12-20 record in Year 3 does not connote colossal failure, it’s no more than one bad lob pass removed.

What Ford needs now is to assess what he’s done wrong, learn from his mistakes and correct them.

Two big problems derailed this season, and they are intertwined. The first was a lack of talent. The second was a lack of player leadership.

Not to discount talent, because without a lot more of it, Bradley cannot begin to contend for the top three spots in the Valley — a level the program has not sniffed since 2001.

But the hardest part of this season was watching the improvement of last season get flushed down the sewer. Last year, we saw the growth of a culture Ford was trying to create at Bradley. To wit, emphasis on defense first as reality, not as a talking point; toughness; rebounding; on-court communication; a true team concept; value for the ball; doing little things right. It was far from perfect, but there was significant progress, helped by strong senior leadership.

Ideally, that leadership torch gets passed to the incoming seniors. Over time, the entire program lives a successful, winning culture.

This senior class dropped the torch and burned the foundation built last year.

Ford won’t throw those players under the bus. There was a time when coaches didn’t worry about that. Now they do, for better or worse. File public shamings among society’s “things you can’t do that way anymore.”

But when I asked Ford what he learned from this most disappointing season of his career, he answered:

“The biggest lesson is leadership and chemistry must be of added importance. It makes the season difficult when the sum of the team is not greater than its parts.”

Coaches all realize the importance of players taking ownership and leading their teammates. Coaches usually recognize when players lack leadership instincts or skills. But coaches also tend to believe they can develop leadership more quickly than is realistic.

The fact is, some people simply aren’t leaders. Most require time to develop their leadership skills and their confidence in those skills. And if your designated leaders aren’t leaders, you’re in deep do-do.

Ford has concluded that leadership must become part of the recruiting process. That doesn’t mean every recruit has to be a born leader, but there needs to be one or two in every class. It’s a quality too important to ignore.

But then, so are other qualities.

Bradley has been without a true point guard since Daniel Ruffin graduated in 2008. They need one. The Braves haven’t had a game-worthy pure shooter since Andrew Warren in 2011. They need several. The passing ability of the assembled players is — no way to be nice about this — horrific: Bradley ranks 341st of 351 Division I teams in assists per game. Everybody on the team should be at least a competent passer. Bradley has put more emphasis on rebounding during Ford’s tenure. More strong rebounders are required.

Without significant upgrades on all these fronts, Bradley is destined to languish longer in the bottom half of the MVC.

Ford knows the problem, and he is well aware of the responsibility he bears for what the Bradley fans endured this season.

But can he fix it?

KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216. Read his Captain’s Blog at blogs.pjstar.com/wessler/. Follow him on Twitter @KirkWessler.

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